1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a process for providing subjects with an increased supply of oxygen, and more particularly, to a process for providing oxygen enriched air to one or more spaces in a building.
It is known that human beings have been exposed in recent years to increasingly strong bioactive substances. A stress brought about by these substances becomes expressed by more frequent occurrence of allergies and other symptoms of illness. The substances are taken up via the skin by direct body contact, by eating and drinking, and also, to a considerable part, by breathing them in from the air. The health risks due to contaminated air in general, and the positive effect of pure, clean air, for example in air health resorts, will not be enlarged upon here, as this subject matter is generally assumed to be known and agreed upon.
All the functions of the body can proceed normally when sufficient oxygen (O2) is made available to the body's cells ia the blood. The hemoglobin of the blood takes up oxygen from the respired air in the lungs. The better the oxygen uptake, the greater the fitness of the organism, and the better a human being feels. As an example of this there can be mentioned the altitude training of competitive athletes, which finally serves to make sufficient oxygen available to the cells of the body under greater stress.
2. Discussion of Relevant Art
It results from the composition of the atmospheric air that a person breathes in only 20% pure oxygen with each breath, and in contrast to this takes in nearly 80% of nitrogen (N2), which is not used by the organism.
The recovery of oxygen from the air has been known for a long time. Thus in the so-called Linde process, the air is liquefied and then fractionally distilled, so that oxygen and nitrogen at about -200.degree. C. are obtained. Or oxygen is recovered chemically from barium oxide (BaO), or from carbon dioxide (CO2), or by the electrolysis of water (H2O).
In the middle 1980's, the hollow fiber membrane technology was developed, which makes it possible to separate the nitrogen relatively inexpensively from the air. Here the physical phenomenon is used that the different gases of the air diffuse at different speeds through a membrane. There are used as a membrane millions of bundled hollow fibers of the thickness of a human hair.
Molecular sieve technology is also known in which the air is introduced for oxygen enrichment alternately into two adsorption containers with artificial molecular sieves, which in an alternating process adsorb and desorb nitrogen and hydrocarbon.
Processes for providing a raised oxygen concentration are known and medically undisputed. Thus in acute illnesses oxygen is provided to the patients for breathing, for example by means of an oxygen tent or by flexible tube connections to the nose. Even patients who are not confined to bed are supplied with oxygen for therapeutic purposes. For this purpose, tubes which supply via a mask or directly to the nose are connected to small oxygen bottles which the patient carries. Trials were also carried out with oxygen pressure chambers in which the subjects had to spend a given time.
However, increasing their wellbeing by an increased oxygen supply was researched not only for sick people but also for healthy people. Thus there already are so-called oxygen bars worldwide, in which the guests, besides the usual offerings of bars, can also breathe oxygen in from a mask.
In most of the abovementioned processes of providing persons with an increased oxygen supply, the subject receives the oxygen for breathing in via a mask or directly through tube connections into the nose. This process is therefore very inconvenient for the subject and involves considerable cost and privations, and in particular because freedom of movement is greatly restricted while receiving oxygen.